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opensource org faq skip to main content home contact login search form open source initiative about board minutes organization operations articles of incorporation board elections bylaws conflict of interest volunteers staff associations history international authority recognition trademark logo trademark guidelines logo guidelines licenses open source definition licenses by category licenses by name license review process licence proliferation lp report to the board open standards the open standards requirement open standards requirement compliance open standards requirement rationale osr frequently asked questions membership become an osi member membership faq affiliates become an affiliate affiliate criteria mailing lists licensing code of conduct general code of conduct discussion list reports disclaimer for osi public forums policy on public communications and archives resources getting help bibliography open source case for business faq open source education articles books blog sponsors join frequently answered questions here are answers to questions we are frequently asked if you have a question not addressed here please contact us basics of open source what is open source software can open source software be used for commercial purposes can i restrict how people use an open source licensed program can i stop evil people from using my program what is free software and is it the same as open source what is copyleft is it the same as open source what is a permissive open source license is some program open source can i call my program open source even if i don t use an approved license is some license an open source license even if it is not listed on your website is a license an open source license if it differs by only a few words from a license listed on your website what about software in the public domain is that open source what about the creative commons cc0 cc zero public domain dedication is that open source distributing and using open source software what if i do not want to distribute my program in source code form or what if i don t want to distribute it in either source or binary form which open source license should i choose to release my software under which open source license is best how do i apply some open source license to software i m releasing what are contributor agreements are they like open source licenses can i strip out the copyrights on open source code and put in my own can i write proprietary code that links to a shared library that s open source i want to publish some code as open source code can i get a license from you is some program open source simply because it s written in some language with an open source reference implementation what does it mean to distribute a program is letting people use it on my server the same as distribution someone is violating a copyleft license for example by refusing to give me source code when they are required to what can i do commerce and open source how do i make money if anybody can sell my code can i sell open source programs even if i haven t written it does open source mean anybody else can use my name and logo using our logo linking to us etc can i use your corporate logo green open keyhole saying open source or something very similar different color texture words on my product hat shirt web page etc how much does it cost for a link on opensource org to my website can i use your corporate logo on my web page to link to you can i link to your site can i use one of your pages in a document i m writing getting help contacting the osi where can i discuss an issue about an open source license can i ask a legal question here can the osi fund my open source software project can you help me find an open source programmer or program how do i unsubscribe from one of your mailing lists how can i join an open source project i have a thesis and i m sending out a survey supporting the osi how can i support the osi how can i help improve the osi web site basics of open source what is open source software generally open source software is software that can be freely accessed used changed and shared in modified or unmodified form by anyone open source software is made by many people and distributed under licenses that comply with the open source definition the internationally recognized open source definition provides ten criteria that must be met for any software license and the software distributed under that license to be labeled open source software only software licensed under an osi approved open source license should be labeled open source software can open source software be used for commercial purposes absolutely all open source software can be used for commercial purpose the open source definition guarantees this you can even sell open source software however note that commercial is not the same as proprietary if you receive software under an open source license you can always use that software for commercial purposes but that doesn t always mean you can place further restrictions on people who receive the software from you in particular copyleft style open source licenses require that in at least some cases when you distribute the software you must do so under the same license you received it under can i restrict how people use an open source licensed program no the freedom to use the program for any purpose is part of the open source definition open source licenses do not discriminate against fields of endeavor can i stop evil people from using my program no the open source definition specifies that open source licenses may not discriminate against persons or groups giving everyone freedom means giving evil people freedom too what is free software and is it the same as open source free software and open source software are two terms for the same thing software released under licenses that guarantee a certain specific set of freedoms the term free software is older and is reflected in the name of the free software foundation fsf an organization founded in 1985 to protect and promote free software the term open source was coined by christine peterson and adopted in 1998 by the founders of the open source initiative like the fsf the osi s founders supported the development and distribution of free software but they disagreed with the fsf about how to promote it believing that software freedom was primarily a practical issue rather than an ideological one see for example the entry how is open source related to free software from the osi s original 1998 faq page many who later adopted the term open source broadly shared the ideological perspective of the fsf but had some disagreements over strategy and rhetoric today some people use both terms choosing according to context and audience one of the tactical concerns often cited by adopters of the term open source was the ambiguity of the english word free which can refer either to freedom or to mere monetary price this ambiguity was also given by the osi founders as a reason to prefer the new term see what does free mean anyway and similar language on the marketing for hackers page both from the original 1998 web site in the 1990s the term open applied to software source code was sometimes used to imply source code being merely inspectable or visible or available going back further in the 1980s there were uses of open in the computing industry that primarily connoted something like absence of hardware vendor lockin osi s term open source as defined in the open source definition makes clear that open source specifically entails not mere inspection access but also conveying to recipients the perpetual right to fork covered code and use it without additional fees the fsf uses a shorter four point definition of software freedom when evaluating licenses while the osi uses a longer ten point definition the two definitions lead to the same result in practice but use superficially different language to get there this history has led to occasional confusion about the relationship between the two terms sometimes people mistakenly assume that users of the term open source do not intend to communicate a philosophical point of view via that term even though many actually do use it that way another mistake which has occasionally been seen since about 2008 is to assume that free software refers only to software licensed under copyleft licenses since that is how the fsf typically releases software while open source refers to software released under so called permissive i e non copyleft licenses in fact both terms refer to software released under both kinds of license neither term binds exclusively to one set of associations or another however it is always question of context and intended audience when you sense a potential misunderstanding you may wish to reassure your audience that the terms are essentially interchangeable except when being used specifically to discuss the history or connotations of the terminological difference itself some people also prefer to use the term free and open source software or foss floss free libre and open source software for this reason see also our history page for more information about the history and usage of the term open source what is copyleft is it the same as open source copyleft refers to licenses that allow derivative works but require them to use the same license as the original work for example if you write some software and release it under the gnu general public license a widely used copyleft license and then someone else modifies that software and distributes their modified version the modified version must be licensed under the gnu gpl too including any new code written specifically to go into the modified version both the original and the new work are open source the copyleft license simply ensures that property is perpetuated to all downstream derivatives there is at least one copyleft license the affero gpl that even requires you to offer the source code under the agpl to anyone to whom you make the software s functionality available as a network service however most copyleft licenses activate their share and share alike requirement on distribution of a copy of the software itself you should read the license to understand its requirements for source code distribution most copyleft licenses are open source but not all open source licenses are copyleft when an open source license is not copyleft that means software released under that license can be used as part of programs distributed under other licenses including proprietary non open source licenses for example the bsd license is a non copyleft open source license such licenses are usually called either non copyleft or permissive open source licenses copyleft provisions apply only to actual derivatives that is cases where an existing copylefted work was modified merely distributing a copyleft work alongside a non copyleft work does not cause the latter to fall under the copyleft terms for more information look at the text of the specific copyleft license you re thinking of using or see the wikipedia entry on copyleft c f permissive licensing what is a permissive open source license a permissive license is simply a non copyleft open source license one that guarantees the freedoms to use modify and redistribute but that permits proprietary derivative works see the copyleft entry for more information is some program open source only if it uses one of the approved licenses and releases appropriate software can i call my program open source even if i don t use an approved license please don t do that if you call it open source without using an approved license you will confuse people this is not merely a theoretical concern we have seen this confusion happen in the past and it s part of the reason we have a formal license approval process see also our page on license proliferation for why this is a problem is some license an open source license even if it is not listed on your web site in general no we run all licenses through an approval process to provide an accepted standard on which licenses are open source and we list the approved ones be dubious of claimed open source ness for licenses that haven t gone through the process see also the license proliferation page for why this matters so much is a license an open source license if it is just a few words different from a license listed on your web site many older licenses such as the bsd license have several variations that differ only by a few words or sentences unfortunately it is not possible for osi to approve every variation so we cannot say if a specific variation is approved where possible please avoid using these variants and instead use the same version used on the osi website what about software in the public domain is that open source for most practical purposes it is sort of this is a complicated question so please read on public domain is a technical term in copyright law that refers to works not under copyright either because they were never in copyright to begin with for example works authored by u s government employees on government time and as part of their job are automatically in the public domain or because their copyright term has finally lapsed and they have fallen into the public domain not all jurisdictions have a public domain and it doesn t always mean exactly the same thing in the jurisdictions that do have it furthermore even where it is clear what it means it s still not a license to be subject to a license a work must still be in copyright that means there is no way for the public domain as a concept to go through the osi evaluation and approval process we wouldn t be evaluating a license text instead we would have to somehow evaluate the laws themselves in different jurisdictions and say which jurisdictions have a public domain that meets the open source definition and does not create problems for software authors and users this would be very difficult because it would mean evaluating not just the statutes but various bodies of case law for example open source licenses usually have a strong disclaimer of liability for the copyright holder but we don t know how or whether the author would be protected from liability for software released into the public domain in various jurisdictions this approach would not be useful to the osi s mission because open source is an international phenomenon and we only want to approve licenses that meet the open source definition everywhere thus we recommend that you always apply an approved open source license to software you are releasing rather than try to waive copyright altogether using a clear recognized open source license actually makes it easier for others to know that your software meets the open source definition it also enables the protection of attribution and various other non restrictive rights that cannot be reliably enforced when there is no license there are 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